


Hungry Ghosts

by Steals_Thyme (Liodain)



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Dark, Gen, Kink Meme, Revenge, Supernatural Elements, Weird Shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-21
Updated: 2009-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-03 02:58:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liodain/pseuds/Steals_Thyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurie feels like she has to really concentrate to keep her feet on the floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hungry Ghosts

It's almost an inevitability. All the hand-to-hand training in the world can't change the fact that she is a sixteen-year old girl in heels, picking fights while wearing filmy yellow fabric and not much else. Her costume isn't good enough to use as a tourniquet, or even to stem the hot trickle of blood down her thigh.

Her fingers are sticky and dark and all she can think of is how scared she was back when she was twelve, even though she knew what was happening because her mother had explained it all, colorfully. She's not scared this time, though, even though it hurts worse than anything; even worse than that time she broke her arm trying to learn how to do backflips.

She's ruined her dress. Mom is going to be so pissed.

–

It takes a long time to get home. Nobody offers to help, if they even notice her at all, but people can be assholes. This kind of thing bothers them, so they just pretend it doesn't exist.

–

Her mother says, "Oh, Laurel," and strokes her cheek and her hair and doesn't sound disappointed. She's not even annoyed that Laurie must be getting blood all over the carpet.

Laurie feels like she has to really concentrate to keep her feet on the floor.

–

Her mom has unplugged the phone and the television and won't tell her why. When the doorbell rings, she answers it before her mom can stop her. Uncle Hollis goes really pale when he sees her, and looks like he's going to cry.

Sally ushers him in, gives him a glass of the expensive scotch. "She's a fighter," she says, fiercely, like she's explaining something. "She wouldn't give in."

–

"It's genius PR," Nite Owl says, grinning boyishly, ear to ear. "Hell, I got a shock when I saw you, and I know what's going on; imagine how terrified your average Knot Top will be."

Rorschach doesn't look as impressed, from what she can tell of that creepy mask. He looks unnerved, even, shifting from foot to foot and not looking quite at her. She smiles at him, wolfish.

"Silk Spectre," Night Owl proclaims. "The ghost who walks. Just genius." He laughs.

Jon stands stoically behind Laurie, and says nothing.

–

"The principle is essentially the same," Jon explains, patiently. "Take my hand, and I can show you."

–

She walks through a wall on her own for the first time. A jubilant grin brightens her face, and she relishes the possibilities that reel out before her.

She soon learns other tricks; how to make the shadows avoid her so she looks uncanny, unreal; how to make her hair swirl and float in an unseen gale; how to move with preternatural swiftness, without seeming to move at all.

How to disappear.

–

She throws her pilfered copy of _Under the Hood_ across the room; it strikes the wall and makes her useless mirror rattle.

She decides to pay the Comedian a visit.

–

She starts with little things; moving the television remote just out of his reach; hiding his keys in absurd places; emptying his drink before he even takes a sip.

She takes to sitting on the end of his bed at night, tugging his blankets away by inches, or weighing them so he can barely move. After a week, he starts to thrash in his sleep. A week after that, he's barely sleeping at all.

–

She emerges through the shower steam, humid droplets condensing on her skin. She knows he can see the shape of the rivulets, even if he can't see her. His face is obscured by the mist on the mirror, but the muscles in his shoulders and back are tight and trembling.

He turns around slowly, and the terror on his face is gratifying.

–

Jon thinks she is fascinating, and she revels in his attention. She can even make him laugh, when she makes her own skin take on a blue sheen. It looks deathly on her, though, rather than godlike.

He calls her his miracle, and talks to her; tells her stories about Gila Flats and watchmaking and Vietnam. She listens intently.

–

She leaves a broken Ba Moui Ba bottle on his kitchen floor.

–

It takes months and months, but she can have the patience of a butcher's block when she wants. Eventually the news comes: Eddie Blake's body was found spread over the sidewalk, blood seeping into the cracks and gutters.

She regrets she was not there to watch him jump.


End file.
